


Five Betrayals of the Black Widow and One Time Natasha Trusted an Enemy

by seikaitsukimizu



Series: Strike Team Delta AU [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Canon Divergence - No Hydra Takeover, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra Grant Ward, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha-centric, POV Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 13:06:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11487009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seikaitsukimizu/pseuds/seikaitsukimizu
Summary: What if the Winter Soldier suffered a cognitive re-calibration years ago, and it was all because of Hawkeye? And what if said Soldier once met the Black Widow but left her behind? What if she remained an instrument of Hydra, delicately shaping the world even as the Soldier tore it down around her?AKAThe evolution of the Black Widow through Strike Team Delta's adventures.





	Five Betrayals of the Black Widow and One Time Natasha Trusted an Enemy

They are, above all else, sisters.

They were each taken, from homes, from the streets, from the schools. None of them remember their families, so they become each other’s family. They learn ballet together. They learn how to fight together. They learn to survive poisoning together. They learn how to kill together.

They’re there for each other when one vanishes and returns with no memory of absence. They support each other when one of theirs never returns, having failed some test, some evaluation, some unknown metric of the handlers. They help each other learn not to cry out when in pain but to be silent, to hone that pain into a fury they can turn against their enemies, the enemies of the Soviet Union.

There are twenty in the end. Twenty ranging from age sixteen to age thirty. Twenty strapped down onto beds and given a serum that burns through their veins and muscles and skin for hours upon hours, maybe even days. Sixteen make it through the procedure, but they’re stronger, faster, _better_.

That’s when the sisters are told who they are, what they are. They are the Black Widows, the weaponized children of Mother Russia.

But to each other, they are sisters bound by blood, bonds, and a body count.

She is Widow 13, the youngest, the smallest. Her hair is blazing red, the only one of the group with such an outlandish color. She was on the cusp of nineteen before the procedure. The serum, they say, will slow her aging, she will be young and vulnerable and appealingly exotic for decades yet. They give her the name Natalia, beat it into her mind as the only identity she has, the name given by her forgotten family and sisters burned away just as the serum burned in her blood.

The handlers teach them new skills beyond dancing and fighting and weapons now. They teach how to seduce any man and how to hide in any crowd. How to walk among paupers and kings in equal strides. How to copy secret documents swiftly and manipulate the most advanced technology of their enemies.

Then they meet the Winter Soldier. He is rugged with dark hair and cold eyes and is definitely not of Russian blood, though he speaks their language perfectly. He beats them not as punishment, but as training. They learn to fight and enhance their already deadly skills with a new lethality. Every muscle, every twitch, every unconscious breath is transformed into a tool they can use to kill.

But the Soldier, they all agree, is their favorite tutor, with his hands that strike them with the intent to mentor and touches used only to adjust their stances. From him they learn how to hit a target to maim, to torture, or to assassinate. He teaches new ways to take down enemies using a smile and charm in a way completely different from the anyone else. And surprisingly, he teaches them how to speak like an American.

At the end they all must go on one mission with him as handler, as back-up. It’s not shocking that when their sister, Widow 5, fails in her mission the Soldier executes her immediately in front of them. What shocks Widow 13, Natalia, is the conflicted look in his eyes, that second of hesitation before he pulled the trigger.

At the anguished grunt that escapes his mask afterward before three handlers march him from of the room. That night she hears screams, his screams. All of the sisters do in their barracks. They don’t know why he’s being punished, perhaps for their sister’s failure, and though they feign sleeping through it, Natalia knows she’s not the only one disturbed at his cries.

The next day, it’s as if he’s forgotten who they are.

Her mission with him is months later, and it’s perfect, until he mentions an American actress and a film she is unfamiliar with. There’s a strange accent--Brooklyn, she recalls from his lessons--that has infiltrated his speech. She calls the handlers that night, and they’re extracted immediately. Before they part, he lets out a whimpered, “ _Please, help me,”_ that she’s sure is not a reference to his impossible memories.

She leaves that out of the report, pretends she never heard it. It’s the first time she keeps something not only from her handlers, but her sisters as well. It’s the first time she realizes she _can_ hide things from her handlers, that they’re not in fact all-knowing.

They never see the Winter Soldier again.

She’s not the only one unsettled by his disappearance. She can see her sisters don’t like it. Unlike their other handlers at times he seemed almost kind--as kind as anyone can be in their lives. But they have little time to process the absence as they’re all sent on mission after mission. The Black Widows infiltrating the world and living up to their namesake.

Her dreams are haunted by his last words to her.

(Six years after they go out into the world, they’re all recalled to their base. Widow 3 killed her handler when he demanded sex after a mission. Widow 8 shot hers when he refused to let her execute the wife of a target. There are other unspoken events, aggressive actions by her sisters she doesn’t know about but which have made their handlers question the stability of the Widows, made them concerned about their viability and loyalty to the Motherland.

Lukin, the head of the project, is as much of a father as well as their lead handler. She knows she’s his favorite, and when all fifteen Widows have returned to the barracks, he strokes her hair and says fondly, “Ashes to ashes, we all fall down.”

It was her favorite rhyme as a child, and when she hears her sisters whispering of rebellion that night, of killing all the handlers, of becoming free, she knows what she has to do.

She’s the smallest, she’s the the youngest. They underestimate her. However, she makes it as painless as possible because above all else: they are her sisters.

By morning, she’s sitting in the center of a bloodbath, the only Widow alive. The handlers look nervous, a guard points a gun at her when she stands. Lukin, though, Lukin smiles, shoots the guard in the forehead, and motions for her to come with him.)

* * *

  
She continues to serve Lukin until the day he ends up like that guard from long ago, when a bullet goes through his head from the Winter Soldier. It’s the first time she mourns losing a handler, but she only has moments before she’s handed off. Lukin mentioned a man called Pierce, who was the first to be killed by the legendary assassin. Lukin also mentioned Hydra, of them stepping in for the Motherland, for her purpose in the future.

She’s passed around to so many nameless handlers it’s a wonder she knows whether she’s coming or going. Not because they’re terrible or incompetent, but because the Winter Soldier is conducting a purge of the Motherland’s program and of Hydra. Each time she’s handed off, she’s mid-mission when news comes of another handler dead, another Hydra base destroyed.

Until John Garrett.

Handler Garrett has infiltrated deep into SHIELD, so deep that either the Soldier is unaware, or is unable to get to him. Garrett looks at her like a tool. His subordinate, Grant Ward, looks at her like a piece of meat. Garrett never orders her to offer herself to Ward, though, and Ward doesn’t dare approach his master’s weapon without permission.

In some ways, it reminds her of Lukin, how once she was under his direct control, other handlers weren’t allowed to use her. She isn’t sure if Garrett is aware of that fact and is using it to manipulate her, or is punishing Ward for some infraction, or honestly believes she shouldn’t be used by subordinates that way.

Garrett never touches her either, but he sends her on missions where it’s part of her cover. She becomes the mistress of Senator Rodriguez, not to cause a scandal but to refocus the man’s attention on his amputee daughter. She whispers of the unfairness of it all, of a little girl born without her lower leg. She mentions casually some of the AIM projects that are only barely legitimate, but will peak his interest. At a soiree she introduces him to the Hydra recruiter by congratulating the doctor on getting funding for his first regrowth project. By then the Senator’s hooked and Natasha makes a discreet exit while Hydra builds their plans to put the man in the White House.

Garrett also sends her to Obadiah Stane, another of Hydra’s well placed plants. Stane uses her, treats her like a mistress, but also has her funnel funds from Stark Enterprises to Hydra’s accounts, make discrete copies of weapons and technologies and get them back to Garrett. Once, he even has her try to seduce Tony Stark so she can kill him. Alluring as she is, she’s apparently not as enticing as a blonde swimwear model, the twin cheerleaders, the redhead assistant. After the fourth failure Stane decides to try a different tactic to kill the man.

About a month after Tony Stark returns home, after the appearance of a strange red and gold robot in the Middle East destroying Ten Ring’s weapon caches, she returns from her latest bout of espionage to find Stane dead, his throat crushed by someone’s bare hand.

She takes all signs of her presence and whatever data she can and leaves, aware that at any moment the Soldier could sight her in a scope.

Garrett is furious. She expects punishment, but it’s Ward he backhands. Apparently, his job was to track the Soldier, and he’d failed to notice him right in their backyard. Ward sulks, but remains loyal, even once Garrett takes him off the case puts her on it. Just tracking, not to approach or take out. He still wants to capture the man.

It’s not as easy an assignment as it sounds. Her handlers trained him in everything she knows. He moves through entire nations with no-one the wiser and it’s only when the bodies surface can she pick-up the trail. He’s figured out SHIELD has Hydra members and is executing them off American soil, which has Garrett fuming and acting more paranoid.

All throughout the glimpses she does catch of the Soldier is of a man lamenting his freedom. Taking his revenge, yes, but miserable. She wonders what he discovered, if being free is actually more taxing, more terrible than belonging. Is it that his hate for Hydra is too great for him to humbly come back in from the cold? Or is it something else entirely?

In the back of her mind, she hears his whimper for help, she remembers the whispers of her sisters as they plotted murder.

Freedom.

It terrifies her.

Why do they want it so much?

Finally, Garrett’s had enough. Almost all the leaders of Hydra are dead. Most of their support or subversive agents have been eliminated. The cost of the Soldier is too much. When rumors of him going to ground in Budapest reach her, Garrett orders her to go and make sure he’s dead, by her hand or anyone else’s, so long as it’s done.

When Hawkeye goes off grid, she assumes he’s either found the Soldier and is taking care of it personally, or is betraying SHIELD.

Then the running starts. The Soldier isn’t going to ground. He’s escaping, and Hawkeye is aiding him.

Her orders stand. She gets ahead of the fighting, on the most likely retreat from the city she would use. She readies a rifle, intent to pick them off while they focus on the groups chasing them.

Looking through the scope as their car comes into view, his screams echo in her mind. His pleas for help understanding strange memories. The look of fright on his face when he was taken by the handlers. The hesitation he had when executing one of her sisters.

The hesitation…

The arrow that strikes the gun’s barrel explodes, superheating the metal and burning her hands. Two swift gunshots follow, going through her abdomen. She collapses on the roof and stares at the sky. She hesitated. She _hesitated_. And now she’s going to die.

Why did she hesitate? The Soldier is an enemy. Hawkeye is an enemy.

_Maybe he was right all along_ , the traitorous part of her mind whispers, sounding like Widow 1, the sister who first spoke of freedom from the handlers.

She closes her eyes, awaiting a different sort of freedom, but she hears a helicopter, recognizes Ward’s voice as he says, “Asset retrieved.”

At least unconscious she can hide her disappointment at surviving.

(They’re in a secret Hydra facility in DC, the best doctors they still have monitoring her after they’ve patched her up and bound her hands in gel-laden linens. Handler Garrett is looking at her, not angrily nor disappointedly, just staring. Choking on her words, she says, “I failed...I failed…”

His shrug is dismissive. “It was a longshot. He trained you. I’m surprised you were even able to get a bead on their exit strategy.” His smirk is self-congratulating. “At least now we have a real chance to retrieve him. Probably best you failed.” He turns away. “I’ll assign you a new handler once you’ve healed.”

And then he walks off, Ward on his heels, neither of them looking back at her. Dismissed.

Useless.

Her toes curl. She’s not even worth executing for her failure. Tossed aside because the Soldier is within SHIELD and within Hydra’s grasp.

In that moment she hates the Winter Soldier.

But she hates Hydra more.)

* * *

Brock Rumlow is arrogant, cocky, and not above taunting her for her failures to motivate her. At least until Handler Garrett and Ward are killed by the Soldier, then he becomes more sullen, more guarded. Whatever power they had over the Soldier is obviously gone if Handler Garrett was unable to bring him back in, and it’s set Rumlow on edge.

She’s done some investigating. There’s still Hydra in SHIELD. There’s still Hydra in the world. But Rumlow is the highest authority left in the organization. And he’s not enough. Factions are splintering. AIM has decided to become its own agency, separate from Hydra, though they intend to use their plans to control the US government, the wars on terror.

And Handler Rumlow is impotently furious at his inability to do anything. AIM knows who she is, and each infiltration attempt to kill their leader fails. As ordered she keeps trying until the time Killian lets her-- _lets her_ \--slice his carotid arteries, only to heal seconds later, lift her up by the neck one-handed, and throw her off a third story balcony.

During her recovery, Rumlow punches a wall, glares at her and mutters, “The Soldier wouldn’t have failed.”

She’s not so sure.

Then everything changes again. Captain America is alive, is alive and in SHIELD, and Rumlow takes an opportunity to try and kill the man. He doesn’t. She could’ve told him if the Captain was guarded by the Soldier he’d never succeed. Still, he left a contingency, orders to keep contacting Hydra, and that if he dies, to finish the job.

She must kill Captain America.

She doesn’t bother trying immediately. Injured he may be, but the Soldier is guarding him, and the security is doubled, tripled after. Then aliens invade, and she would have a chance, but every time she tries to approach the battle one of the strange purple-metallic... _things_...attack her, and eventually she gives up and retreats.

She waits. She’s a Widow. She can be very patient.

She sends coded signals to Hydra’s mainframe. At first she gets some responses: _Stay on target. Run silent._ Then nothing, no contact at all. She finds a job where she’s able to watch Stark Tower where the Captain lives, then moves down to DC with him. Still, they maintain radio silence.

She follows her mission directive. His jogging routes are unpredictable, until they aren’t, but she spots the SHIELD agents, knows she won’t get close even for a sniper shot. The black man, Wilson, got close only because she breaks into their radio frequencies and hears they’ve cleared him--and any jogger the Captain passes--as safe.

The retirement home of Peggy Carter is more guarded than the New York SHIELD office it seems. Even with her hair dyed she wouldn’t be surprised if some of the retired officials there remembered her face. It was too risky.

Ironically, it’s Wilson that gives her the first opening: the meeting at the Veterans Affairs building. There’s practically no SHIELD presence, the veterans aren’t subject to background checks--why would they be? They’ve already had them. It’s easy for her to create a new false identity--Natasha Romanoff--and attend the next meeting, sitting in the back like the Captain, watching as he listens.

It’s how intently he listens that causes her to start listening. To learn about trauma, about dealing with loss, about being damaged but not broken. About how to cope and adjust and _live._

It’s nothing, she tells herself. It’s tripe. It’s meaningless words. A broken capitalist system assuaging their guilt over the wounded people they’ve created in their useless expansionist wars.

Except what is she if not damaged. She’s a Widow, she can’t break. But she’s lost (murdered) her sisters. Her mentor killed everything she knew and his screams haunt her nightmares. Her body has been a thing of amusement for allies and enemies. She’s been discarded by the people who built her and abandoned by a dying organization.

She hates the cracks in her psyche following the Captain has caused.

She hates attending the meetings.

She can’t stop listening in the meetings.

And then he approaches her. It throws her off, her target speaking to her out of the blue, but after just a second of hesitation she laughs and pastes on a false smile and takes his arm for coffee and scones.

She doesn’t try to seduce him. But she does say, “I don’t remember my parents, I was a ward of the state,” and “my sisters all died when I was young,” and “I killed. I didn’t always want to, but I...I had orders.”

All bits of truth that easily spin a web of lies around the Captain’s weak heart.

At some point he’s put his hand over hers. Not possessively, not enticingly, just...offering comfort. She knows what he’s doing. She’s been trained to do it to targets. But it’s so...sincere, so honest, that when she realizes he’s done it she goes quiet, staring at the appendage.

The Captain withdraws the touch immediately. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. Sam does that sometimes and I--I mean, that’s no excuse, I wasn’t trying to be forward, I just-”

“No, it’s...it’s all right.” She hesitantly slides her hand forward, palm up, and just as hesitantly, he lets his palm rest against hers. “I just...haven’t been touched in awhile.”

It’s the biggest lie she’s told yet. She’s never been touched with such tenderness before.

“Bucky--my friend in New York--he started complaining because I wouldn’t stop touching him.” He laughs, bashful. “He didn’t mean it, but I mean, I get it. I...Sam says we need human contact. And I...it took some time before I was okay with only a few touches a week, instead of every day.”

His cheeks have a charming flush to them and he’s ducking his head, like he’s half-ashamed of what he’s confessing. Without meaning to, she tightens her grip on his hand and when he looks up she smiles. “Thank you.”

And she’s shocked to find that she means it.

He doesn’t offer to walk her home, but does say if she wants to, they can do it again after next week’s meeting. She agrees, but spends the night staring at her apartment ceiling wondering what’s going on. She has a mission. She has to kill the Captain. When she holds her hand in front of her face though, turning it over and back, examining it, she’s got the strangest sensation in her gut. Something warm and gentle and unlike anything she’s ever felt before.

It’s the first time in months she sends another missive to Hydra, trying to make contact. There’s still no response. So she continues going for coffee, and then they have a dinner before the meeting, and then they have regular dinner dates, and she...for the first time she’s questioning her orders.

She must kill Captain America.

She _must_ kill Captain America.

She’s just having trouble remembering why, when Steve Rogers, the veteran, the man, the person, has shown her such kindness.

She remembers the Soldier executing her sister. She knows kindness can be gone in an instant. If she told him the truth, if she revealed she was Hydra’s Black Widow, or even if she showed up while Bucky was in town--she’s figured out who he is, seen his picture on Steve’s phone--his gentle demeanor, his generous nature, his kind touch would be gone in an instant. They would try to kill her.

She has to make the first move.

She _has_ to kill him.

She decides to try the following Friday, almost four months since they started meeting regularly. She knows Bucky--the Soldier--will be out of town, and Sam is off visiting his mother. So she goes to a bar, has a few drinks, enough that she could be tipsy to anyone watching her, then calls Steve on her cell phone. She’s drunk, she says, she asks for a ride home.

He’s there within ten minutes herding her out to a taxi.

That...that is not what she wants. She pulls him in with her even though he resists--barely--and she curls up to him and nuzzles his shoulder. “Let’s go back to your place.”

He blushes prettily at that, but shakes his head. “I can’t. You’re not...it’s a secure building. I can’t just let anyone in. What’s your address?”

Even better. She’ll have her full arsenal of tools at her fingertips. She rambles it off, making sure to take a couple tries to sell the drunken stupor. She continues to cuddle, wrapping her arms around his arm and rubbing her thigh against his, her hand trailing over his chest. He keeps blushing, but stoically accepts her touches.

Until they reach her apartment. “We’re here. Think you can get up by yourself?”

She pouts at him. “Not very honorable, making a lady take herself home.”

He lets out a sigh that’s half-fond, half-aggrieved, and he asks the taxi driver to wait a few minutes.

No, that won’t do at all. She waits until they’ve walked up the front steps, him practically carrying her, when she whispers, “Stay.”

“Natasha, I can’t. I...you’re drunk, you might regret-”

She lets just a little hint of tearful angst into her voice, “I just...I don’t want to be alone tonight. P-please. Steve…”

He bites his lip then leaves her sagging against the door. From the corner of her eye she sees him pay the cabbie and wave him off. _Perfect._ When he’s back and they’re in the elevator up to her place, she whispers, “Thank you.”

His smile is understanding. “I...I’ve been there too. I’m happy to help a friend.”

She shuts her eyes as she rests her head against his bicep and feels utterly sick to her stomach.

_Standing orders,_ she reminds herself.

The word ‘friend’ resonates over and over in her mind.

Her apartment came pre-furnished, but it’s still very spartan. She sees Steve take it in briefly, then ask if she needs to use the powder room. From there it’s easy to manipulate him into helping her into bed, but he simply brings in a chair from the living room, doesn’t accept her invitation to sleep with her.

“There’s plenty of room,” she tries again, sliding her hand up and down the sheet beside her once she’s lying down.

He shakes his head. “Wouldn’t be polite. But I’m here.” He slides his hand against her moving one, squeezes it comfortingly. “I’ll be here all night, I promise.”

Her smile is completely false as she shuts her eyes. She wants to cry, for the first time she regrets her loyalty to Hydra. Because Captain America is their enemy, but Steve Rogers...Steve Rogers is a wonderful man who saw this damaged woman and only wanted to help, only _wants_ to help. Is trying to help.

And she intends to repay that kindness with bloodshed.

She regulates her breathing, faking a transition to REM sleep. She even rolls over, her hand leaving his. From the dip in the mattress she can tell he’s left his hand there. She waits another couple hours, until she hears his breathing even out, then she opens her eyes and silently slips her hand beneath her mattress to the knife she keeps there.

She slides off the bed, crouches, listens to see if he even notices. No, he’s still asleep. She’ll have to be fast, but even a super soldier can’t recover from a direct stab to the heart. She stands in front of him, blade raised, and...freezes.

Her hand shakes.

She grits her teeth, brings her arm back and…

And…

She won’t.

She _can’t_.

She is a Black Widow. She’s never fallen for a mark, never hesitated at orders, never once been taken in by a kind hand or warm voice or generous gifts. But never have they come from a man who genuinely didn’t want--didn’t _ask_ \--for anything other than her wellbeing.

Captain America is an enemy.

Steve Rogers is a...a... _friend._

She sucks in a breath, and that’s when her luck runs out because Steve blinks, blinks and takes in the knife in her hand, the attack stance. “Natasha-”

She pivots on her heel and roundhouse kicks him in the temple. He falls off the chair and she uses the heel of her hand to hit him in the same place as he struggles to get up.

He falls on his face, unconscious.

The knife’s in her hand. His back is exposed. It would just take a quick thrust.

Instead, eyes strangely wet, she drops the weapon and walks away.

(She gets a response, finally, from the Hydra network, but it’s not a handler upset that she’s failed--abandoned--her mission. It’s not even Hydra at all. The number, when she calls, is a burner phone belonging to the one and only Winter Soldier.

“The only reason I’m not hunting you down and ending you,” he growls in Russian, “is because _he_ asked me not to.”

She doesn’t have to ask who _he_ is. “Hydra is all but dead. I don’t know if living is a gift or curse.”

“Walk in front of my scope and you won’t have to worry about it.”

She responds quietly with, “So you’re the only one allowed a second chance?”

“You’re Hydra,” he answers with finality. “You burned your second chance when you went after Steve.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You failed.”

“No,” she repeats, “I _couldn’t._ ”

He’s silent for a beat, two. “He wants to know if you’re safe,” he finally grumbles.

“I’m the Black Widow,” she replies, “I’m never safe.”

Hanging up on his surprised silence is exceptionally satisfying.)

* * *

  
She returns, eventually, to the beginning, to the Soviet--to Russia, to her training facility. It’s still there, but it’s dark, lifeless, a shadow of its former self. Breaking in is easy, and she finds someone has gone in and burned entire swaths of the facility, offices and papers and labs. In the barracks the only sign of her lost sisters the few bloodstains not hidden by soot and ash.

There’s nothing here. She’s not even sure why she came, to be honest. She doesn’t have any happy memories here, no desire to relive lost times or an interest in finding her real family--assuming they’re still alive.

She leaves in less than three hours, taking one final glance at the shell of what built her, and for a moment, she gets it. They’re both relics of a bygone era, hollow, useless, and lost.

She’s on the train the next morning to Sokovia. The Hydra base has long been destroyed by the Winter Soldier, but she knows there’s a safety deposit box at a bank in the capital. She doesn’t know what’s in it, but it was important enough that Lukin had notes on it. She’s not sure what she intends to do with whatever’s in there, but maybe it’ll give her a direction, a purpose.

She’s realizing, without Hydra, she doesn’t know how to live. She’s understanding why the Soldier looked so miserable all those years ago. Ironically, her meetings at the VA are helping her cope with the cascade of emotions and listlessness she’s feeling..

It turns out she isn’t the only one interested in that safety deposit box. She discovers it’s already been raided. With a quick smile and toss of her hair she’s able to weasel out the name Helmut Zemo. It takes no time to track him down to to the eastern border, hiding in a motel Hydra once used. When she shows up at his door, his brow is furrowed until he sees her red hair.

“Widow. Yes, I should’ve expected you. Come, come.” He leaves the door open and turns away. If it were a few months ago, she would’ve killed him at that moment.

Instead, she closes the door behind her. “You took something from Hydra.”

“Yes.” His smile is smarmy. “Revenge against the Winter Soldier.” He holds up a red book, one that she vaguely recalled seeing Lukin read and re-read. “In his quest for,” he scowls, “freedom, he slaughtered my family. It took years, but I’ve found his weakness.”

She tilts her head to the side. “And you intend to kill him with it?”

“No. I intend to destroy him!” He sets the book down. “There’s notes in here on you, too. Fascinating, what programs they used.” He rests his knuckles on the table. “Did Hydra send you to aid me?”

She thinks it over a minute, calculating in her mind. “They sent me to retrieve the book,” she finally lies, “as a final attempt to end the Soldier.”

“Partners, then,” he offers before sitting back down and opening the book. “There’s only one bed, you’ll have to settle for the floor.”

She rolls her eyes at that, as if she couldn’t make him take the floor if she so desired. Instead, she’s more interested on what’s in the book. She moves to lean over her shoulder. It’s Russian, but it’s messy Russian. Scientist’s scrawl. However, she does see the term ‘trigger words.’ “Is the plan to make him an agent of Hydra?”

“The ultimate sleeper. He’ll murder Captain America at the annual inaugural address. Live. In front of the world.” He grins up at her. “Killing his best friend, it’ll destroy him, and he’ll have no choice or defense. All I have to do is find a way to speak the words where he can hear.”

She nods along, then when he turns back to the book she grips his head and twists sharply. He falls forward immediately.

She didn’t give up her entire existence just so that some stranger could enact Hydra’s mission to kill Captain America. She collects his money, all his notes, the red book, and departs the motel. No one saw her arrive, no one sees her depart.

She goes to an abandoned safehouse and studies the red book. Zemo was right, there are plenty of notes. About her sisters, about their rebellious minor acts, about seven different handlers killed and twenty maimed while trying to control them. There’s even a whole section about her, Widow 13, the trigger phrase with her favorite rhyme to instill loyalty.

Ashes to ashes...

She should’ve known Lukin used her like the rest.

The Winter Soldier program has the trigger words. She deliberately skips over them. She doesn’t...doesn’t want to force him back into that state. Given what happened with Handler Garrett, she’s not sure they’d even function properly. Either way, she skips over most of it, until she gets to a newer section. More Winter Soldiers.

Stronger and faster than the original Winter Soldier, but with a rebellious streak like that of her sisters. They were put in cryostasis until proper programming could be instituted within that state.

Five more…

She stares out the window for a while at the night sky, debating what to do. Even rebellious, their release would be advantageous to Hydra. And she’s missed having sisters. This book says she’d have two. And three brothers.

She’s on a train to Siberia the next morning. After that it’s ‘borrowing’ a helicopter and plenty of supplies to reach the Hydra base. It’s practically its own glacier thanks to the snow, and it takes a blowtorch before she can get the outer doors open and safely in from the cold.

Not that it’s much better inside. Still, with her flashlight and knowledge of Hydra, it isn’t long for her to find the main lights for the facility. She’s surprised there’s power to divert from the cryostasis, but looking around, it doesn’t seem as if it’s been abandoned for seventy-odd years. If anything, based on the footprints someone’s been here in the last twenty years.

More on guard, she makes her way through the facility. It appears abandoned, but those footprints nag at her. At least, until she makes it to the large main room, and finds it’s well lit not from the lights, but from the spherical cryo-chambers. One Soldier in each, staring--glaring--defiantly, resentfully.

They didn’t want to go on ice.

There’s also at the far end a series of computer mainframes, the older ones she knew from the 70s and 80s. She sees they take up not only the far wall, but the two behind the cryo-chambers as well. That’s where all the footsteps are leading, to installing these devices. The question is why. Even twenty years ago this equipment was obsolete.

“I knew you would find your way here eventually,” a static, accented voice echoes around the room. She pivots on her heel, weapon up, but it’s the series of screens at the back of the room activating that finally catch her attention. Approaching cautiously, she sees a series of news articles flash by. Missions of the Winter Soldier. Missions of the Black Widows. The death of Howard Stark. The Death of Alexander Pierce.

All flashing around the larger screen of green static, that eventually resolves itself into greenlines of vertical code that resemble a human face. It has a squat nose and glasses, of all things, and even though there are no cameras, she has the distinct impression she’s being looked at like an insect by the disembodied figure. “Who are you?”

“I _am_ Hydra, Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna, born 1984.”

She lowers her gun. A damaged system, then. Part of her real name, but last name and birth year of her current false identity, now that she finally appears to be in her young thirties. “Your program is faulty.”

“Not a program, Frauline. I am the mind of Arnim Zola recorded and preserved on two-hundred thousand feet of data banks.”

She recalls Zola from her history studies of Hydra. A Swiss scientist that was eventually...coerced into serving the United States and SHIELD. Obviously, he had his own agenda. “So you were put in cold storage, like the Soldiers,” she finally tucks her weapon away. There’s no keyboard to interface with, but she keeps glancing around, trying to find an access point. For what, she’s not sure.

“Hydra intended to bring order to the world, but the war taught us much. Humanity would not simply surrender to us. We sought to create a world of chaos where people would surrender their freedoms willingly. You were a great asset in accomplishing those goals.”

She nods along. “Until Pierce died, until the Winter Soldier turned against you.”

If a screen could scowl, it did, or at least attempted to. “The setback was unforeseen, and Pierce was not so vision-oriented as to remand the Soldier to Hydra’s custody.” There was a moment of pure static, like an instant reset, and then the face was placid again. “To secure Hydra’s future, at least one head must survive. I am that survival.”

Slowly, she walked away and approached the nearest cryo-chamber, a woman with dark hair and accusing eyes. A sister. “Hydra,” she reports, “is all but dead. You are the last survivor.”

“No, Romanoff, Natasha Alianovna. Hydra’s saviors are around you.” The program sounds proud, victorious. “Each Soldier speaks thirty languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They have been trained to take whole nations down in one night with no one the wiser.”

“Like me. Only they’re uncontrollable.”

“No longer. Twenty years is a good timetable. I created an algorithm. Named by my former assistants as Project Insight.”

Finally she turns her attention back to the screen. “It stabilizes them?”

“Their minds could be reprogrammed. They could become perfect Hydra assets.”

“How?”

“The mind sees what the eye doesn’t,” the program replies. “We have long used light manipulation to program our assets. The Widows were often subject to this method.”

She doesn’t remember it, but she and her former sisters often had bouts of time missing, coming back to themselves only as a room brightened, or being stunned by the strobing of certain bulbs. “Yes,” she says slowly. “I...don’t remember, but I...think so.”

“Their eyes still function. It is not true stasis, but suspended animation. One year is less than a minute. The algorithm adjusts their chamber lights accordingly, programming them. They are almost complete. You are here because you received my notification.”

“No.”

That gives the program pause. “No?”

“I came because of this.” She holds up the red book. “It mentioned new sisters, new brothers. I wished…”

“They are not Widows or Soldiers. They are superior. And they are the future of Hydra.”

She lowers her arm. “When will you wake them?”

“My control over their illumination was difficult enough. Our systems are not compatible.” The head seems to tilt down, its eyes boring into her. “That is why a message was sent to all Hydra members, to arrive and begin the revival sequence.”

“There is no more Hydra,” she answers him. “I am all that’s left.”

The program pauses again. “A Widow with no handler. I suppose you’ll do.”

She feels her grip on the book tighten, enough that its spine bends in her fist. “I’ll do,” she repeats.

“Once you’ve awoken the new Hydra, they will see to your new assignment. They will need updating on the current status of the world, of SHIELD’s weaknesses and where they can strike quickly, effectively, to begin recruiting again. I am the last head, but five more will rise upon the ashes of the old Hydra to start anew.”

“And I’m to be given a Handler once again.”

“You are not as efficient, but you are a loyal asset. You will have a place in our order.”

“That,” she says gravely, “is where you’re wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“I’m not loyal.” And then she pulls out her weapon and shoots the screen twice.

“What are you doing?!” The face appears on the remaining six screens, all screeching at her unanimously.

“What you made me to do,” she replies, shooting at each screen once.

“When one dies two more will take our place!” The program continues to scream despite the screens being gone.

“You are the last head,” she answers calmly and walks before the cryo-chamber with what she thought could be her sister. “If these five die, I’ll have cauterized the last neck stump. Nothing will rise.”

She looks the frozen woman in the eye. She sees nothing but hate and contempt and a desire to burn the world in her stare. If given the chance, Natasha could awaken her, awaken all of them, and belong once again.

But like the Winter Soldier before her, she’s finding she’s not sure she wants to belong to someone anymore, wants to follow the orders of a Handler.

Freedom is daunting.

Enslavement, she’s coming to realize, is worse.

The mainframe lets out an inhuman screech as she shoots a bullet through the protective glass and right into the woman’s brain.

(She does more than just shoot the soldiers. When she finds the controls she floods the chambers with the liquid nitrogen used to regulate their suspended animation. Some of it leaks out, freezes the tapes of the mainframes. Putting on the same protective gear she wears outside, she goes back in and smashes everything: the computers, the stasis chambers, the soldiers.

Zola, program or person, can’t seem to articulate his rage, and instead lets static and radio feedback permeate the room.

The silence following the explosion of C-4 throughout the room is a blessing.

If only her mind could be just as serene. The internal chaos at knowing she’s destroyed her only chance at returning to Hydra is deafening.

But she’ll never be controlled again.

She makes sure the red book is left in the flames of the base, watching its pages burn away before boarding the helicopter and returning to civilization.)

* * *

She stays in Eastern Europe for the time being. She’s still finding herself, trying to figure out what she wants. She’s also retracing some of the Winter Soldier’s steps. He’s destroyed many of their bases, but she knows more recent outposts, they’re more desperate attempts to hide from the world and rebuild from the ashes.

She isn’t going to let them.

Some of them she’s found based off Lukin’s notes, some from what’s left on the Hydra servers. Most of the time she finds ashes, or corpses, or both. The Winter Soldier and Hawkeye cleaning up as much as they can since her last attempt.

She doesn’t dare enter Latveria proper, not with their strict death penalty and rabid hatred towards anything Russia, but Hydra snuck in, placed a subterranean bunker on its southern border. A holding facility of some sort. From what she can tell it’s been abandoned, but there’s still power going to it, and she wants to find out why.

If it’s a backup for Zola and his mainframe.

She goes under the cover of night, and nearly misses the entrance. It’s hidden simply, an optical illusion against a cliff of rocks, so innocuous most anyone out here wouldn’t even look twice. Fortunately, she does.

It’s far in the cave that she finds the false door. The retinal scanner doesn’t work, so she uses a crowbar and brute strength. The main entrance, after all, isn’t the holding cell. It’ll be the bottom floor.

When she enters, though, she finds only emergency power going. The red lighting is still a sharp adjustment after the darkness outside, and she draws a knife, keeping to the numerous shadows in case there’s any reckless or desperate Hydra members still here.

It wouldn’t be the first time. They’re running scared, they know they’re almost extinct. And even if they don’t know of her betrayal, the fear of the Widows has spread to the surviving contingent. She’s not sure if that’s her own legend, or word has been getting around from the Winter Soldier.

Still, here it seems there’s no one. When she gets to the control room she finds no power is being fed to the consoles. The security system, the database, nothing. There’s not even enough power to divert from the emergency systems to boot up the basic DOS.

But there’s definitely power going somewhere.

She lets out a frustrated breath. She stops. She takes a deep breath. In, then out.

Oxygen.

It’s stale, but it’s functional. For a facility like this, life support systems are probably hardwired in with the emergency lighting. That’s what’s drawing all the power. She does some mental math. A place this size, abandoned with only emergency systems, it’s probably been at least three weeks. Three weeks abandoned.

Unless there’s someone on the secure level below.

It makes sense, hiding from the Winter Soldier, SHIELD, anyone. The facility can run for up to three months hypothetically, and they’re usually stocked for at least a week. Someone could easily stockpile supplies and hide out for six weeks.

Scowling, she prowls through the base, securing the main floor before approaching the stairwell to the floor below. It’s a straight ladder down to a square hermetically sealed door in the ceiling. Supposedly it’s only openable from this side, but the brains in Hydra could easily build an override before going into hiding.

Making sure there’s no traps, she pulls out the handles, turns the locking mechanism, and slots them into the opening position. The hiss when she opens the door is barely there. Pressurized, but almost equal with the floor above. A quick visual scan shows no weapons or obvious ambushes, and she leaps the remaining ten feet down, landing in a crouch.

The lights aren’t red down here, but they’re just as dim. The air seems almost thinner, as if oxygen has been minimized to this floor. She stalks silently through the corridors. It’s a normal layout, left side for interrogation and labs. Right side for holding prisoners in specialized cells. And all of them spectacularly empty.

No, that’s not quite right. There’s an arm lying on the floor at the farthest-most cell. Beside it are crates of emergency supplies: medical and nutritional. It’s right by the largest ventilation grate, mangled and damaged, as if it were ripped out of the wall and then frustratingly tossed aside.

If someone tried to escape through that, all they’d find is airways so narrow a handful of papers wouldn’t slide through. She’d be frustrated too. So either a scientist trapped down here, or a prisoner.

She’s betting on the latter.

She approaches even more cautiously, staying to the far wall. The arm is in covered in a blue-white sleeve that looks like a cross between a sweater and scrubs. The hand is pale and thin, almost skeletal. She stares at it for a full moment before deciding she won’t learn anything more studying it twenty feet away.

Quickly as she can, she shifts to the front of the cell door, weapon drawn.

Not one prisoner, two.

The arm belongs to a boy, late teens, early twenties. His hair is platinum with black roots, and he looks so emaciated she’s surprised to see his chest moving. It is, barely, but he appears unconscious. His other arm is curled protectively around a girl, just as slim and starved, with red hair spilling down her back and her chest moving just as slightly as the boy’s.

She’s also glaring at her.

She bares her teeth like a wild animal and stabs a pointed finger at her, eyes flashing red.

The suddenly appearing red mist moves so quickly and unexpectedly that Natasha can’t dodge it, and then she’s not in that Hydra facility anymore, but surrounded by nothing but red, a room of red. Images float like clouds around her. The Winter Soldier begging for her help. Being taken from two adult figures and crying out for them. The fire of the serum in her veins. The screams as her fellow sisters get sterilized. The shattering hatred for Hydra with Garrett’s dismissal. The unacknowledged satisfaction as that red book burned.

The breaking of her psyche in the VA meetings.

Steve’s concerned smile when she told him she had to kill and didn’t want to.

Her entire life laid bare culminating in a cry of grief that explodes the disjointed prison and has her landing on her knees, back in the Hydra facility, taking heaving breaths and meeting the blood-drained face of the girl.

And from the haunted look, Natasha can tell the girl experienced the same thing she did.

“My mind,” she grits out, “is no longer a toy. For _anyone.”_

There’s a harsh silence with only the sounds of Natasha catching her breath when the girl, with a disused voice, says, “You’re here to kill us.”

It’s not a question. “I came to kill Hydra.”

Since she’s been in her mind, Natasha knows this girl is aware she’s not affiliated with them, but that she is of them, from them. “We are made, like you.”

Not like her, not broken down and programmed and trained. These are some of Hydra’s latest experiments, trying to create super-powered people. Not super soldiers, but people who are just as--if not more--effective.

She means they’re both living weapons.

“Do you want to die?” She finally responds. She put down the Widows. She killed the super soldiers in Siberia. She can put down two more if necessary.

She bares her teeth again. “Harm my brother and I’ll kill you,” she hisses.

Perhaps not as broken as her, then. She nods, tucks her weapon away and pushes herself to her feet. “Can you walk?”

The girl stares at her and Natasha can see the internal struggle. “Maybe,” she admits finally.

“Then come with me. I will carry him. We can leave it burning in our wake.”

Something hard and satisfactory comes over the girl then, and with lots of effort she gets to her feet, wobbly on her legs and clinging to the wall. Her gaze never leaves Natasha carrying the boy, and when they get to the ladder, Natasha brings him up before going back down and helping the girl as well.

As they pass through the doorway she spits acrid Sokovian words. A red light appears in her hand briefly and then something beneath them explodes. When Natasha finishes sealing the door and turns around, that last bit of energy seems to have been too much and the girl has passed out beside her brother.

It takes her twice as long carrying the two, but she’s shouldered heavier burdens.

(The girl, Wanda, wakes up off and on on the drive to Poland. She learns that Hydra abandoned them sixteen or seventeen days ago by their estimation. That her brother, Pietro, insisted on her taking the last of the rationed food and water. On them trying everything to escape only to huddle together wasting away.

On how Wanda has telekinesis and Pietro can break the sound barrier.

Natasha tells them they’re safe, that they will recover, that even if they can’t go home, they’ll be taken care of. She explains that Hydra is dead and revenge has already been handled. And she sees an anger still burn in a girl that, in some ways, reminds her of herself.

But she can’t handle rebuilding two more people. She’s still trying to rebuild herself.

Once they’re both unconscious in a safehouse, she makes a call she’s been dreading but known she had to make the moment she learned of their power.

“Rogers.”

“Steve.”

“Natasha?!”

“Track my phone. I’ve got...there’s two kids with powers. They were made by...they need help.”

“JARVIS can you--yes, thank you. Stay put, we’ll be there-”

“I’m not staying.”

“Natasha,” his voice gentles, “I’m not angry. Even when Bucky told me I’m...you’re recovering. Like I am. I don’t blame you.”

“It’s not about you, Rogers. It’s about me.” She can hear him take a breath. “Don’t track me, don’t hunt me. I need...I need time.”

It’s quiet on the other end of the line for a minute, then, “I’ll take care of the kids. I promise.”

She hangs up on him, sets her phone on the table, and walks away once more.)

* * *

She wanders for another few months before stopping, finally, in Bucharest. She keeps a peripheral eye on Hydra and its dying throes, but those few that are still alive, those that still believe in the cause, don’t seem interested in calling her. Either they don’t know she’s alive, or they don’t care. They haven’t sent anyone to exterminate her for her mission failure or the destruction of their facility in Siberia.

For a full year she settles. She has a job translating for the Romanian embassy, has started buying knick-knacks for her apartment, is learning to cook and discovering books. She can read, but she’s never had the opportunity to really...explore what’s out there.

She keeps buying spy thrillers. She finds them hilarious.

There’s an official Avengers training facility she learns from the news, someplace in upstate New York. The two kids start appearing as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. In one article the picture is of the boy smiling and the girl laughing. She never had doubts that Steve would keep his promise, but she’s glad they aren’t like her, can still find themselves and have fun.

She also reads about Thor’s return, about an incredible shrinking man, about a Doctor Strange losing the use of his hands who she recalls was on a list of elimination targets Rumlow was once ruminating over.

She keeps up because she knows despite her final plea, eventually the Avengers will come after her. Maybe not Steve, but the Soldier or Hawkeye, or maybe even SHIELD itself since they seem to be partnered together. She knows the tranquil life she’s built while discovering herself is only transitory, that one day she’ll again be on the run, or perhaps simply dead from a sniper’s bullet.

It doesn’t happen like that at all, though. She’s out shopping for some plums when a man approaches her, smiling. She doesn’t recognize him, and he’s definitely not native. A tourist perhaps. When she goes to pay for his fruit he says, “Here, let me,” in perfect American English. He sees the stall vendor roll her eyes.

“Thank you,” she replies.

“I was wondering if we could talk, at a cafe, or maybe your house?”

Her brows raise at the presumption. “My house?”

“Well, I’d rather a cafe. Steve said you liked scones, and I haven’t had any in Bucharest before.”

She keeps smiling but feels her insides freeze. This is it. A cafe undoubtedly filled with SHIELD personnel or her home, where they’ve probably already got it subtly surrounded.

Despite her current desires to minimize civilian casualties, there’s something...violating about the thought of being taken down in her own home. So she brightens her smile and goes, “You’re a friend of Steve’s? Why didn’t you say so!” She takes his arm and he has a bewildered smile as she tilts her head. “Coffee and scones it is.”

His grin is just a tad shy. “Great. Lead the way.”

Slightly surprised at this stranger letting her choose the location, she thinks of the three cafes in immediate walking distance. She decides to go to her least favorite, so at least the damage will be to a place she tolerates, rather than enjoys. Once there, he orders tea instead of coffee, and Natasha asks for a pot to share. They both skip the scones, and once again, he lets her choose the seating.

With her back against the wall and the best sightlines of the building, he takes a seat across from her and drums his fingers nervously on the table. Natasha takes the chance to study this stranger.

His hair has touches of gray and is curling. He has crinkles around his eyes, which hold both a depth of wisdom but also a quiet rage that she knows from the mirror. Not a typical SHIELD agent, but not an Avenger she recognizes either. Still, they wouldn’t send a novice to take her down or try and pull her in. She keeps smiling at him and prepares for an attack.

When the pot does come, he lets her pour, but takes the first sip, as if to show it’s not drugged or poisoned. “So,” she says, glancing at the brew in her cup, “how is Steve?”

“Oh, you know. Travels a lot. He works in New York now but still lives in DC. He wants to keep close to Peggy.”

“Mm.”

“Oh!” That quiet grin returns. “I’m sorry.” He holds out a hand. “Bruce Banner.”

“A friend of Steve’s.”

The shrug is self-depreciating. “We’ve bonded. I think he feels a bit guilty over how his existence led to my...alter ego, let’s say.” At her raised eyebrow, he clears his throat. “The, uh, big green rage monster, as Tony puts it.”

The Hulk. A supposedly indestructible creature. Of course the Avengers would send someone she couldn’t kill. “And what does Steve want? I did ask him to leave me alone.”

He ducks his head. “Yeah, but, uh, I’m not here for him. Or for the Avengers, really. Tony thought it might come better from me since you seem to like a low profile and he’s anything but...well, anything but.”

She blinks at that once, twice. “Tony thought?”

His gaze turns to the cup between his hands, seemingly fascinated with his tea. “I may have also mentioned that as someone who spent...who needed time on their own, I’d know if you really weren’t approachable.”

She tries to parse that, but comes up completely blank. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure why you’re here.”

He clears his throat again and looks up sheepishly. “Right, so, apparently Tony’s been helping root out any remaining vestiges of Hydra from SHIELD and the world wide web. And he’s been going through a lot of files, and he’s become sort of...fixated on you.”

She thinks back to his rejection when she was on orders to kill him and snorts. “Fixated.”

This time his ears turn red. “Not like that,” he’s quick to remedy. “More like, your skills. And your fighting. And, well, how Steve moped about after you left.”

“Moped?”

Bruce shrugs. “People don’t understand when you need time away. Steve does but you were the first time he really reached out and…”

And she tried to murder him, then told him to leave her alone. “So Stark wants to bring me in as, what, a trophy for Steve?”

“I think more as a way to cheer him up. Peggy’s been,” he frowns a little, “she’s been having more and more bad days. We’ll be there for Steve, of course, but you’re one of Steve’s friends, and he’d never admit it, but Tony likes to take care of people he cares about. He wants to bring you in to help Steve.”

And that, that she can parse. “So,” she takes her eyes off him for the first time, takes in the entire little shop and the street beyond. There’s no sign of SHIELD agents, no sign of a take-down team or any other Avenger. “So this isn’t an attempt to take me out.”

He looks shocked, then appalled, then a little green--literally--around the gills. “No! No, no, god no. I would never agree to be a party to that! And if I knew I wouldn’t keep it from Steve or the Avengers. We don’t--don’t just hunt down people who need, need help.” He shakes himself all over. “Not even me,” he says quietly. “SHIELD kept tabs, but never hunted me. When Bucky approached me he was alone, he asked for help. No team, no back-up. He wasn’t going to force me, even though his best--other best friend had been taken by a mad alien.”

She lets him get himself settled down and for the first time takes a sip of the tea. It’s cooled since he poured it, and is too bitter, but she wasn’t going to risk the cream since he didn’t take any. Then again, maybe she should. SHIELD might not be above using this man’s ignorance to take her down, but looking out the window, trying to find the Soldier or Hawkeye for a sniper’s shot, she instead sees nothing, just the normal bustle of a day in Bucharest.

“If this is a recruitment speech,” she says finally, “it’s not a very good one.”

That gets a chuckle out of him. “No, it’s not. And even when I volunteered I knew I’d screw it up.” he runs a hand through his hair. “I mean, if you want to join the Avengers it’d probably be okay. Wanda and Pietro would be thrilled, I bet.”

“Maybe not,” she hedges. She did betray their trust by handing them over to the Avengers. “So if not the Avengers, then what?”

“So his girlfriend, Pepper--Virginia Potts, she’s CEO of Stark Industries. During the AIM attack the head of security, Happy, was injured. He’s fine now, but given your skills and knowledge and,” he coughs, “fighting capabilities, he wanted to offer you a job as her...assistant.”

“Assistant,” she repeats. Given another Handler. No, not a Handler, a boss. Like her boss at the consulate.

“It’s not an easy job, but he wouldn’t propose it unless he thought you were up to the task.” He shrugs. “The fact that he trusts the love of his life in your hands says a lot, too.”

She snorts again. “It says he’s crazy.”

Another chuckle. “No argument here,” he agrees.

“The other Avengers will hate it.”

Bruce hears what she’s saying. “He and Bucky have a strange relationship, but whatever understanding that’s between them means Tony will get his way.” He shrugs again. “Usually does.”

She looks down at her half-empty cup. “And he trusts me not to murder his CEO, even though I once worked for a man that tried to murder him?”

He blinks, shocked, shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I...you’d really have to ask him that. If it was somewhere in Hydra’s files, then he already knows and he’s willing to take the risk.” The corners of his mouth turn down. “I wouldn’t, but...but in some ways Tony really is better than the rest of us.” He glances both ways. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

That pulls a smile out of her. “Easy enough.”

Bruce offers a half-smile back. “Really, it’s Steve. He...his belief that you’re recovering, that you just want to come in, to not be used as a weapon…  You’d think Bucky would be more sympathetic.”

“The Soldier saw first hand what I was, what I could do, what’s in me. Steve knows nothing of that.”

“He knows you didn’t kill him, even though you had plenty of opportunities. He knows you made him laugh at dinners and helped him through some rough days and reached out to help two kids who you knew needed it.”

“He’s too trusting.”

“Maybe. But Tony isn’t. If he thinks you’re safe to hire, he believes it.”

“If he’s wrong, his girlfriend dies.”

This time, the grin is enigmatic. “You wouldn’t be the first to try.”

There’s a story or two there, but one he’s teasing her with, an enticement to draw her in.

And she has to admit, she _is_ tempted. There are parts of America she’s missed, the bustle, the diversity, the easy acceptance of a dead hero returning.

And, if she’s honest with herself, she’s missed Steve as well.

“I’m not sure I can say yes yet,” is what she finally settles on.

Bruce smiles in understanding and pulls out a slim electronic pad from his coat to place on the table between them. “I had a feeling. You can always turn it down, too. We won’t come after you. Well,” he thinks for a second, “Tony actually might. To whine at you for not accepting the offer.”

“I know sixty-two ways to end his life barehanded.”

“And he’ll be the first to tell you that’s a fetish of his. I know,” he holds up his hands, “completely insane. But,” he shrugs, “a good friend nonetheless.”

She rolls her eyes and pulls the pad towards her.

“There’s a contract on there. You can review, send it back with changes, whatever. Also an open ticket, to use whenever if you want to fly back. And, uh, I made him promise no tracking devices but I can’t promise…” He finally looks regretful at the last. “I tried to disable any tracking software, but he may have installed some hardware I can’t access--”

“I can.” They’ve already found her. If she needs to disappear she can just leave it behind.

She’s not sure if she will or not just yet.

“Of course you can,” he seems to mutter. “Well, that’s, uh, that’s it. Unless there’s something else you’d like to know?”

She smiles and sips her lukewarm tea. “Nothing in polite company.”

He chokes on his own drink before taking in her dancing eyes and laughing self-deprecatingly again. “Then I’ll leave you be. I know how...intrusive this was. Thank you for giving me the time.”

She nudges his shin with her toe. “You can stay to finish the tea.”

His smile strains a little. “I would, but…” He looks at the pot as if it’s personally offended him.

She laughs at that, sets her own cup down, and walks out of the restaurant. He scrambles behind her, leaving a few notes on the table as he goes. Once he’s outside, she holds out her hand. “Until we meet again, Bruce.”

“You too, Miss Romanoff.”

“Natasha, please.”

“Natasha.”

And then he’s gone, and she’s left with her plums, some bitter tea in his stomach, and a pad offering her a future in New York.

It’s a lot to think about.

The pad background has a picture Steve took of them once, her and him and Sam after a meeting.

Eyeing it over, maybe it’s not so much to think about after all.

(She agrees. She knew she would eventually. It ends up being terrible timing. She flies into DC the day of Peggy Carter’s funeral. She keeps a veil over her face and a hat to hide her hair, hugging the back wall. Steve is stoic, gives a rousing speech about his first love, and carries the coffin as if it weighs nothing.

She finds him hiding in a bedroom at the wake, but not alone. The Soldier is with him. They both look up at her entrance, and when she discards her hat the Soldier is on his feet, glaring at her.

She holds her hands to the side, not that she needs to be armed to kill, but she keeps her focus on Steve. The silence reigns for a minute, two,then he nods at her briefly before turning away, eyes watering.

The Soldier’s gaze promises an intense, possibly dangerous conversation later, but moves over to hide Steve’s face as he starts to cry, his own eyes dangerously shiny but unwilling to show weakness in front of a potential enemy.

She backs out of the room then.

Sam finds her next, looks her over, then gives her a sad smile. “Good to see you, Romanoff,” and from his tone, she can tell he means it. “Here to stay this time?”

She glances over to Tony Stark, who raises a wine glass to her and she nods. “Yes,” she replies. “I think I’m ready to come home.”)


End file.
